


With Hindsight

by PhantomEngineer



Series: Butterfly Wings [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 18:36:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14314710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomEngineer/pseuds/PhantomEngineer
Summary: After the werewolf incident, Lily reflects on the state of her friendship with Severus and the complications of feelings, as well as her place in the world and her relationship with her sister.





	With Hindsight

Lily had known that she and Severus were growing apart, a childhood relationship beginning to strain under the stresses of growing up. Complications that Lily had tried to ignore, like the way he had seemed increasingly drawn to the Dark Arts in a way that made her uncomfortable, and the way that she found herself increasingly drawn to him in a way that transgressed the boundaries of friendship. That she knew it was in part due to that darkness in him, the bad boy from the wrong side of town who was despite it all always kind to her, only made her more uncomfortable. And still that didn’t mean that it wasn’t a shock, a vicious blade to the heart that she thought she might never recover from. He had been her best friend and suddenly he was gone. It made her forgive every flaw he had, every bit of friction that had rubbed between the two of them, all of those irritations meaning nothing now that he was dead, torn to pieces by her classmate.

She had never liked the Marauders. She didn’t hate Lupin, at least not completely. Sometimes she did. She knew it hadn’t been intentional on his part, but it didn’t change the fact that he had killed Severus, even if it was the others who had caused his death. He withdrew from Hogwarts. He couldn’t really continue, not after having killed someone, even if it was someone that no one else liked.

That hurt too, the realisation that she was the only one who had actually cared about Severus. It made her reassess things, in the moments when she wasn’t lost in her grief. All the things she had dismissed before, as him being moody or overly sensitive, she now regretted. All the other students in their year, who she had liked, she now saw as just an empty mass of people who didn’t care about him.

Black and Potter had been given detention, for a prank gone wrong. Just as Lupin had suffered no actual legal repercussions as far as Lily could tell. At least he had seemed to have a guilty air to him, at least in the brief glimpse Lily had seen as he packed his things to leave, something that would haunt him for the rest of his life. The Marauders weren’t really the Marauders anymore, their number reduced to three. Those that remained seemed more upset about Lupin’s departure than the fact that they had killed Lily’s best friend.

She lost her faith in Dumbledore too, who continued on as Headmaster without question. There were a few mutterings about the dangers of letting a werewolf attend Hogwarts, but she realised that was all. These things happened in the magical world. The amount people cared was connected to their status, and Severus had been no one much. He had been more than that to Lily, though. She regretted the fading of their friendship, just as she found it hard to go through class alone. Magic was less magical without him. She would cry, suddenly out of nowhere, waves of misery returning to overwhelm her.

She found herself wondering what it would have been like if he hadn’t died. If he had avoided Lupin’s claws somehow or if he had simply never been led down the passageway to his death. She knew it did her no good, to dream of all the ways she would have told him how much she loved him. Of them repairing their friendship properly. Maybe even dating, if she plucked up her courage and took the risk. She hated that she’d let her feelings interfere with what they already had, pushing him away and acting cold to avoid showing that she was feeling the opposite, all a stupid attempt to protect their friendship that had done the opposite.

It made her uncomfortable in the wizarding world, in the world he had introduced her to. Everything was soaked in memories, just as Cokeworth was too. It made her feel unsure if she truly belonged there, as if she was like him, a person that didn’t matter as much as the purebloods. Maybe not even a person. She dreaded returning home for the summer, to a place where she would no longer be able to go see him a few streets across town. She didn’t want to think of his parents, unsure if they cared or if they didn’t. She didn’t want to see them grieving over a lost son, but she didn’t want to risk seeing them simply continue on as if he had meant nothing to them. Hogwarts and Cokeworth, the two places that formed the backbone of her existence, where she had always been friends with Severus and now was a lonely girl with nothing but memories of the dead. 

She missed her parents, wanting their comfort to reassure her. Needing some kind of support to lean against now that the future seemed to be a fearful thing full of adult problems rather than the idealistic dream she had thought awaited her. She wanted, more than anything, to reconcile with Petunia. She could never reconcile with Severus now, never tell him how much she had loved him despite the ways they had seemed to fall apart, but with Petunia she still could. She could overcome their differences and fix things, because at least they were both still alive.


End file.
